OLDHAM Athletic are stuck in a financial rut after publishing similar accounts to last year.

According to their most recent accounts Latics made a profit of £108,000 in the last financial year, reducing overall losses to over £5.2million, while the club’s total liabilities are in excess of £4m.

There is also the possibility of an additional £882,000 due in taxes, although it is understood this is being disputed by current owner Abdallah Lemsagam, who claims this is the responsibility of a previous owner.

Football finance experts Kieran Maguire says the latest figures render the club “technically insolvent”.

However, he says there is no indication from the accounts that administration was on the cards.

“There’s nothing from these accounts which would suggest it’s going to take place, but like many other clubs in broadly similar positions the club’s living from hand to mouth on a day to day basis,” he said.

“What I would say is that the club is technically insolvent because it’s got more liabilities than assets so therefore it’s relying on somebody to dig the club out in effect.

“They’re not alone, over half of the clubs in English football are technically insolvent. So it’s a small crumb of comfort but it is some comfort.

“There are directors’ loans, there are significant creditors, what happens if one of those gets called in at short notice?

“There’s nothing terrible, but there’s nothing good either to draw from these.

“It’s broadly the same as last year. They owe an awful lot of money. They’ve got lease commitments of £1.4m.

“The directors’ loans have gone down by £180,000, which is quite a lot.

“They owe suppliers well over £1m but there isn’t a breakdown.”

Maguire added: “It’s really difficult to get your teeth into what exactly is the position. They publish effectively the legal bare minimum that they have to, which they’re perfectly entitled to do. It is legal, it just makes a tough job tougher to try to communicate the position to fans.

“This is one of the things from the Fan Led Review, Tracey Crouch’s report, one of the recommendations is that they (clubs) are more transparent and they publish more information because without the fans where would Oldham Athletic be? But the owners don’t seem to want to let the fans and other people who genuinely care about the club have anything above the bare amount of information.”

Maguire says it is not all bad news with the club’s books.

“It looks as if they’ve made a profit but they’ve not published a profit and loss account so from my point of view it is guess work, but it looks like they’ve made a profit of £108,000, which is good. Although one reason they’ve probably made a profit is they didn’t pay out any win bonuses,” he said.

“They’ve got a bit of cash in the bank and their liabilities have gone down but trying to work out to whom they owe the money… they owe over £4million, trying to work out who that is to exactly is difficult.

“I think one of the things which is a bit squeaky bum-ish is they might have to pay nearly £900,000 in tax.

“I think they’re blaming that on the old owners so what they’re saying is they’re talking to the tax people, but somebody is going to have to pay it.”